scientific farming, and the _Vyestnik Evropi,_ he makes speeches, writes to the minister, combats evil, applauds good, falls in love, not in an ordinary, simple way, but selects either a blue-stocking or a neurotic or a Jewess, or even a prostitute whom he tries to save, and so on, and so on. But by the time he is thirty or thirty-five he begins to feel tired and bored. He has not got decent moustaches yet, but he already says with authority: “Don’t marry, my dear fellow.... Trust my experience,” or, “After all, what does Liberalism come to? Between ourselves Katkov was often right....” He is ready to reject the Zemstvo and scientific farming, and science and love. My Ivanov says to the doctor (Act I., Scene 5): “You took your degree only last year, my dear friend, you are still young and vigorous, while I am thirty-five. I have a right to advise you....” That is how these prematurely exhausted people talk. Further down, sighing authoritatively, he advises: “Don’t you marry in this or that way (see above), but choose something commonplace, grey, with no vivid colours or superfluous flourishes. Altogether build your life according to the conventional pattern. The greyer and more monotonous the background the better.... The life that I have led--how tiring it is! Ah, how tiring!” Conscious of physical exhaustion and boredom, he does not understand what is the matter with him, and what has happened. Horrified, he says to the doctor (Act I., Scene 3): “Here you tell me she is soon going to die and I feel neither love nor pity, but a sort of emptiness and weariness.... If one looks at me from outside it must be horrible. I don’t understand what is happening to my soul.” Finding themselves in such a position, narrow and unconscientious people generally throw the whole blame on their environment, or write themselves down as Hamlets and superfluous people, and are satisfied with that. But Ivanov, a straightforward man, openly says to the doctor and to the public that he does not understand his own mind. “I don’t understand! I don’t understand!” That he really doesn’t understand can be seen from his long monologue in Act III., where, _tete-a-tete_ with the public, he opens his heart to it and even weeps.